Houston, we have a question: Students talk to astronaut

Wednesday

Oct 31, 2007 at 12:01 AMOct 31, 2007 at 6:35 PM

Students from six Ontario County school districts chat with an astronaut in a video conference.

Stephanie Bergeron

Classrooms in the Marcus Whitman High School and Middle School were quiet Tuesday morning, with all eyes glued to astronaut Sandy Magnus, who was chatting with students about what it’s like to be in space.

“This is so weird,” said ninth-grader Michaela Hacker as she stared at a camera before the conference started. On a television screen below, two Midlakes students stared back. Honeoye, Canandaigua, Marcus Whitman and Red Jacket students were also linked in to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Over the course of 45 minutes, students asked Magnus 20 questions, from whether cell phones are allowed in space to what subjects students should study if they want to become an astronaut themselves.

Tuesday’s video conference was planned around Pittsford native Pam Melroy’s 14-day mission, set to land the morning of Nov. 6. It was set up by the Ontario County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services, a club that is tracking the launch.

Hacker wanted to know if there was anything Magnus wasn’t prepared for despite the rigorous training before her mission.

“Just feeling what full gravity feels like,” said Magnus. “How I had to adjust with gravity.”

Melroy said that after a day-and-a-half in space, “it felt very normal.” But when she was re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere things started to feel heavy. The book she was reading on commands and procedures began to feel like it weighed a ton even when the shuttle was only at one-third of earth’s normal gravity. When she landed after her first mission, Magnus said her helmet “felt like a bowling ball.”

Magnus logged 10 days in space on her first mission after being selected by NASA for astronaut training in 1996. In August 2000, she served as a CAPCOM — the person in mission control who communicates with astronauts — for the International Space Station. In October 2002, Magnus flew aboard shuttle STS-112 with Melroy.

“I wanted to be on the cutting edge of technology and learn new things,” she said in response to Honeoye sixth-grader Kendra Balcerak, who asked what inspired her to be an astronaut. “I also wanted to see what the earth was like from space.”

Each of the eight schools participating were allowed 10 minutes to ask questions. At Marcus Whitman, all students submitted questions. Chosen were three from Hacker, 10th- grader Sierra Schaubert and eighth-grader Cassidie Smith. Students could see Magnus, a moderator and the other students asking questions.

“Can you use a cell phone on the space shuttle or the space station?” asked Canandaigua fourth-grade twins Alison and Alexandra Wagner from Honeoye’s video link.

Actually, astronauts use an Internet phone that communicates via satellite.

“It’s really nice to be able to call your family from the phone to say hello,” she said.

Without even being asked by students, Magnus addressed what she said is one of the most common questions about astronauts: how they poop.

“I was very worried about how the toilet would work,” she said. “It works really well.”
Magnus said toilets in space work “like a vacuum cleaner.” Fans create an airflow to transfer waste away from the body and into a tube. Some is brought back to earth for disposal and the rest is deposited overboard.

“It’s something we use gravity for that we don’t even know we’re using gravity,” she said.

Students from Bishop Kearney High School in Irondequoit asked about the level of training needed to become a shuttle commander.

“The question is, what subjects are interesting to you,” she said. “There’s no magic path to the astronaut office.”

After the space shuttles are retired in 2010, Magnus said NASA will be looking for a fresh crop of astronauts to go back to the moon and to Mars. Those future astronauts could be in elementary school right now, she said, and will need to be skilled in many more fields than just astronomy and physics.

“I don’t even know what kind of people we’re going to need,” she said.

Maybe that future astronaut will be Smith, for whom a trip to the moon isn’t out of the question.

“I think it would be cool to see earth from space,” she said. “Just to know more about astronomy would be great.”

Stephanie Bergeron can be reached at (585) 394-0770 , ext. 255 or at sbergeron@mpnewspapers.com

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